Intense fighting in Gaza despite warning of "chaos" risk

Intense fighting in Gaza despite US warning of "chaos" risk AFP correspondents and several witnesses report violent clashes between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters in different sectors of Gaza. "Our war of independence is not over yet. It continues even today (...) We are determined to win this fight," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the celebration of Remembrance Day, which commemorates the dead in conflict every year. Nearly a week after the start of the Israeli army's operation in Rafah, a city bordering Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip where 1.4 million Palestinians are crowded, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that an offensive in this densely populated city will not achieve the stated goal of eliminating Hamas. AFP correspondents reported helicopter gunfire and bombings in the east of Rafah. Netanyahu threatens to launch a major ground offensive to attack the last battalions of Hamas who, according to him, are taking refuge there. In recent days, there have also been clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the northern Gaza Strip, where, according to an Israeli army spokesperson, Hamas is "trying to reconstitute its military capabilities." There have also been clashes in Zeitun and Jabalia, respectively in the center and north of the Gaza Strip, according to AFP correspondents and witnesses. Last week, Israeli forces ordered the population to evacuate the east of Rafah and 300,000 Palestinians did so, according to the army. But according to Blinken, a major operation in Rafah would risk creating "chaos," "anarchy," and "enormous harm" to the civilian population "without solving the problem" of Hamas, he said in an interview with NBC. "We have seen Hamas return to the areas that Israel liberated in the north, even to Jan Yunis," a city in ruins near Rafah, he claimed. On foot, in vehicles, or on tricycles, thousands of Palestinians continue to flee Rafah in an attempt to find refuge elsewhere in Gaza. "We have lived through hell for three days and the worst nights since the beginning of the war," 24-year-old Mohamed Hamad, who fled the east of Rafah, attacked by bombings following the army's evacuation orders, told AFP. "Talking about safe zones is false and misleading. No place is safe in Gaza" for its approximately 2.4 million inhabitants, wrote Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), on the social network. In response, the army launched intense bombings followed by a ground offensive on October 27, which devastated Gaza, displaced the majority of the population, and caused a humanitarian disaster, with an imminent threat of famine, according to the UN. Hamas warned on Monday that the health system in the Palestinian territory is "hours away from collapse" due to the lack of fuel to operate hospital generators, ambulances, and staff transportation. According to the Hamas Health Ministry, 35,034 people have died since the war broke out, mostly civilians.